Bad Bad Leroy Brown Movie

Turning Songs Into Film: "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"

The inspiration for a movie premise can come from anywhere and in the case of one news item today, it's in the Jim Croce song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." According to the Hollywood Reporter, producer Warren Zide (co-executive producer of American Pie) picked up the rights to the song with the intention of turning it into an "action-comedy franchise."

Zide said when he reached out to the Croce family for the rights to develop this project, they struck up a partnership and the family gave Zide their blessing. Jim Croce died tragically in a plane crash in 1973 , the same year "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" was No. 1 on US music charts, and his career was just beginning to really take off. The movie would not be a biopic but instead would tell the story of the guy in the song, Leroy Brown, "the baddest man in the whole damn town/ badder than old King Kong/ and meaner than a junkyard dog."

What do you think of developing an entire movie out of a character from a song? I would love to watch the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi battle the pink robots (although that might actually go to stage instead of a movie). Are there any song characters you think would make a good movie?

To see a clip of Croce describing the real Leroy Brown and performing the song live,